


Supernova

by Lyn_Laine



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types, DC Cinematic Universe, DCU, Smallville, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Female Clark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-07 03:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12224481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyn_Laine/pseuds/Lyn_Laine
Summary: A little girl with superpowers has to act tougher than a little boy, a superhero being friends with little girls is different than a superhero being friends with little boys - and that's just the first chapter. Fem Clark Kent / Fem Superman. Mainly Smallville and Nolan/Bale Batman verse.





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

I knew from the beginning what it was like to be two-sided.

Melodramatic, I know. But there were two sides of me, from my earliest memories. First, there was the part of me everyone saw. This person was totally content with their daily life, not a mystery in the slightest, and safe to show pretty much everyone.

Then there was the other person.

This person was who I was inside. This person was who I wanted to be. This person was who I had to hide. This person wondered if anyone else ever walked around feeling like their life was supposed to have been something different, like they'd been cheated out of something vital that everyone else had.

You think I'm being an angsty teenager, don't you? You think I'm being metaphorical, emotional, over the top.

Yeah. I figured.

But see, I have to start out with that, even if it's a bit icky and twelve years old ish. Because I have to explain to you that when I started writing this story, I wasn't sure which part of myself to show first. Because it's never that simple or black and white, is it? It's never that you are one person and you pretend to be another. It's not that clear cut.

So where to begin, when there are two Nova Kents?

I'm going to show you one half of me first. This is a true part of me, but it's also the person I always preferred everyone see.

Flashback to childhood.

I was raised by two salt of the earth Kansas farmers, Jonathan and Martha Kent. I was their only daughter, their only child in fact. They named me Nova. I lived out in the wilds of the Heartland countryside. I could walk out onto our ramshackle back porch, the white paint chipping off the wood, the screens against insects lifted, and around me would be nothing but barns and silos, waves of livestock, dust and dirt roads and golden fields, the dark green forests and twisting deep blue, foamy rivers way off in the distance. A shimmer hung over the hot, humid air. Mosquitos flicked past.

It was quiet. I remember that. It was silent. No alarms ever went wailing by. No shouting. No gunfire. No cars zooming past. No drunk people arguing in the streets.

Silence. Chirping crickets, maybe, on a summer's night.

Our town was called Smallville. No, I am not kidding. By the time I was a teenager, its population had grown to a whopping 45,000. When most people think of small country towns, they think of the Hallmark channel or a Norman Rockwell painting, and that's true. But like with me, it's only part of the truth. Small towns have their problems - the biggest one being chronic boredom and crippling depression. Some people drank or took drugs chronically; some graffitied or smashed mailboxes. The way I saw it, there were advantages to both styles of living.

Small towns aren't perfect.

But my town was small. I could take Hickory Lane, a bumpy dirt road, past Hansen and Reilly Fields in clouds of dust, and arrive to more clouds of dust right in the heart of downtown, which was a single main road with one-story shops that went for about five miles. There was a one-screen theater, a drive in, and a single multiplex. That was it. There was one antiques store. One flower shop. A town hall straight out of the 1800's. A water tower. One school for each set of grades. One coffee shop. That was about it.

Somehow we always found things to do. My parents liked to take me as a kid to this little diner, Rosie's, over on the ambitiously named Third Avenue. We would sit in a shiny wood and red cushion booth, me sandwiched between the wall and a parent on one side, the other parent across the table from us. I would be treated to a milkshake, a burger, and a slice of pie. I don't actually know if Rosie's sold much else, come to think of it. I remember swinging my legs and watching little beads of sweat appear on the cold chocolate milkshake glass, the same kind of old-fashioned model used for ice cream sodas.

In my memory, my parents break from their amiable chatter beside me and my father laughs. "You'd better drink that before it melts," he says.

My Mom had been a pretty redhead from a snooty rich family in Metropolis City. Super independent, on the fast track to business or law. High expectations. Then in college she met a broad-shouldered farmer with golden hair, tan skin, a drawl, and a broad grin. She left Metropolis with him and moved out to join him on his farm. My Dad had been a real rebel as a teenager, high school football star, motorcycle rider, always arguing with his Dad, temperamental and stubborn. Then his Dad died of cancer. My father never spoke much about it, but I always got the suspicious feeling he carried a lot of family-related regrets. He ended up doing what he'd sworn he'd never do, and taking over the family farm. My mother did what she'd sworn she'd never do, and became a poor farmer's wife. They adopted me after learning they couldn't have kids.

It sounds like a sad story, doesn't it? But my parents were never sad people. They were warm and loving, had fun with each other.

"Weirdly enough," my Mom told me once, "I think your father and I turned out happier than any of our teenage friends. We don't have a lot, we have to count every penny, but, well -" Here she smiled. "Jonathan always promised me we'd never have a lot. He was very upfront about it. He said we'd never be rich. He said we'd never travel the world. That was part of his proposal."

"Then why did you marry him?" I asked.

"Because he promised me he would always love me. That doesn't sound like much, but I had a thousand suitors in Metropolis and none of them ever felt they could promise me that one simple thing."

"Did he keep his promise?" I asked.

"What do you think?" We'd been leaning up against a tractor near the barn. My Mom turned to my Dad, smiled and waved. He looked up. He was confused, but he grinned and waved back, cheerful warmth in his eyes. I could see it then - he did still love her.

"Wow," I said suddenly. "You're really smart!"

My Mom laughed. "I actually approached him," she told me mischievously. "I went up to him in college and asked him for his class notes. Don't tell your father, but I was actually the class note taker. He was just really hot." She leaned forward conspiratorially.

"Thanks," I said flatly. "I'm nine."

Mom laughed. "Well he was! And he gave me his notes without even asking me who I was. I asked him how he was sure I'd give them back. He said that he just preferred to believe the best in people. And you're just like him, Nova, and you grew up here, so you don't know how wonderful it sounds to hear someone that genuine when you come from a big city.

"And I had the stupid thought: God, I hope he marries me."

"Are you sorry?" I said. "That you couldn't have kids?"

"We do have a kid," she said.

"You know what I mean."

"And you know what I mean." She gave me a very certain look and walked back toward the simple little farmhouse.

In my head, we go to the Church in town every Sunday and I believe every word - even though I don't like wearing a dress, I still believe. I try to sit patiently, even though I don't want to and I still fidget a lot and my Mom scolds me quietly. That was back when I was still totally certain of how the world worked.

In my head, I take a book or a comic and go outside to the organic orchard on the Kent farm. I grab an apple, sit underneath the shade of a tree, and munch away as I read for hours, as ladybugs and beetles and ants crawl in the soft green grass all around me and the light dapples onto the book or the comic through the leaves and the trunk itches against my back.

In my head, I saddle and get on a horse, yell for the farm dogs, and we all wade off into the nearby woods, the dogs scurrying and barking around the horse's hooves. We stay away from the bridges because I don't like heights, but we go everywhere else. We hike through treacherous trails, I duck underneath low hanging branches, I stop to take my shoes and socks off and let my feet get wet in the water of the creek. Everything is darker and cooler in the woods, so this is a perfect summer's day. The dogs pant around me and the horse ducks and lowers his head, still saddled for the trip back.

In my head, I get up at dawn, tie my hair back in a ponytail, and wade through muck and manure in work boots as I do chores in the pearly pinkish light, cleaning out the stalls and feeding the chickens and mending the fences. This is what I get instead of gifts every second week, and I am okay with that, and even when I'm not I pretend to be because I love my parents.

In my head, I swing my feet in the loft my Dad built for me up above the barn floor, listening to him blast classic rock music as he fixes farm equipment a short trip down the rickety staircase. This is the music of my childhood.

In my head, I moan at bedtime and I'm grumpy when I get up in the mornings. In my head, my parents scold me with some good nature and everything's alright. In my head, I have a map of the world taped above my bedroom's headboard, pinned with the growing list of all the places I want to see someday.

I can always go back to that place. Because in my head, you see, life is perfect. Was I adopted? Yes. Closed adoption. I was three. And I didn't remember my life before being a Kent. But I knew that from an early age and that was okay, because my parents loved me and no matter how much I wondered about my past, I knew that was what mattered. Their love.

I was Daddy's tomboy as a little girl. Nova Kent prided herself on never being girly, and occasionally referred to herself in the third person. Nova Kent wore ponytails and baseball caps, jeans and capris. She sat in the bleachers and snacked at ball games with her father, went fishing with him in swampy rivers, loved playing sports. She knew big words, read too many books.

My friends were all girls, though. From the beginning, I was determined to make friends with other tough, interesting girls. With sheer force of will, I would introduce myself to them and they would eventually find me again because calm is often mistaken for confidence and I am rarely not calm. Even when I lose my temper, some inner center rides within me, separate from the rest, like the eye of a hurricane. For some reason, together with the humanity my parents taught me, people seem to find this comforting.

So in my head, I have other memories, too. Camping trips with childhood girlfriends, stargazing in mesh tents in the cool night air, that sky so big and clear through the net above us, and making s'mores around the glowing orange-red campfire, setting them on fire and then blowing them out. Bike riding to their houses or into town, wheels clattering and skimming as I lean forward against the handlebars, graceful in sporting, martial movement the way I never am in dancing.

I would try, though. It was one of my greatest and most embarrassing childhood secrets, just as big as some far vaster ones in my dramatic young mind where everything was out of proportion. I had a childhood obsession with Disney princesses. I would watch them on the TV and try to mimic what they did, every smile and song, every graceful movement.

It was useless. I couldn't dance, I wasn't girly, and I was tone deaf. Too intellectual, boyish, and awkward, I felt oddly like I was studying a foreign culture, like I was trying to be everything I was not.

That was the side of me people knew about.

But I had… what my father and mother insisted I call "gifts," but they were gifts I had to keep a secret from everyone but my parents. So they didn't feel much like gifts. In my young mind, they were simply God-given. It was obvious and easy where they came from.

I was born with the ability to lift things over six times my own body weight and run faster than the speed of light. I never got an illness, never a single scrape, never got cold. I could read sixty pages a minute, master languages like they were totally natural to me in a matter of months, do advanced calculations in my head, think faster than any normal human could, and I had a photographic memory. Trying to cut my hair just broke the scissors, bending them into uselessness, which seemed like a problem until my family discovered I could grow or retract my long, wavy black hair at will, making it any style I wanted.

It's hard to describe these things to someone who's never experienced them, though I can say that when you run fast enough, everything starts to slow down until it finally freezes - raindrops, mid expressions, and all - into total stillness. The world stops. Anytime I wanted to, I learned, I could stop the world. That's to say nothing of my ability to think faster and talk faster than any normal human could.

My parents stressed patience with everyone else - patience, and compassion. "They weren't born with your gifts," my father would remind me. "Try to be nice, okay?"

It was hard. "Blessed" with an innate intensity and opinionatedness even when I actually knew nothing, an expert at debate with a wincing talent for unflinching honesty, I found it difficult cutting down on my "take no prisoners" mode to the point where I didn't upset the people I was closest to.

But I learned. My parents stressed control of my gifts, and limited my youthful contact with the outside world until they were satisfied with that level of control, though they certainly never forbade me from seeing people or leaving the house. They just told me I couldn't be true about myself - that I would be locked away, that I would frighten people.

So I learned. I learned how to hold increasingly more delicate things until my strength was never a problem unless I lost all emotional control. I learned to run like normal people, hide my speed. I learned what was "smart" and what was "creepy." I started making excuses to the outside world when it came to any weirdness.

I didn't like lying. It wasn't my style. But I especially didn't like lying because of the idea that anyone would think I was a monster if they found out the truth. I wasn't a monster. I didn't want to hurt anyone. But, my parents explained to me painfully, I couldn't expect the world to understand that. I couldn't expect the world to give me a normal life - not unless I kept myself hidden.

Then Emily came along.

-

Emily Dinsmore's father offered a playdate, and at first my parents weren't going to accept. I managed to convince them otherwise, eager to have a close friend who actually got to spend regular time at my place.

"We've just finished saying my control might be good enough to have a close friend!" I said, throwing my arms wide. "I promise not to hurt her. Please let me try this."

So though they were skeptical, they arranged my first play date with Emily.

Emily thought the loft above my barn was amazing. "A whole place all to yourself!" she cried, running around the loft, a little girl with brown curls and a cheerful smile.

"Uh, yeah." I was somewhat amused. "My Dad built it. He calls it my Fortress of Solitude. So… do you know any games?"

"What, like tea party games?" Emily blinked big brown eyes at me.

I felt a course of dread. "No," I said slowly. "I mean sports games. Games outside."

She gasped. "No other girl I know does those things!" she said in shock. I remembered that Emily's parents were more the garden-club, real-estate variety of Smallville clientele.

"Well, do you want to go out and try? I promise I'll go easy on you." I tried to smile.

"Yes!" She pumped her fists in the air and sprinted down the loft stairs. Emily, I was to learn, was full of mischievous energy.

I ended up teaching her the rules of soccer and we ran around the backyard, kicking a soccer ball, giggling together. "You're cheating!" I shouted, laughing instead of angry.

"You're better than I am!" she fired back without pause. I had just made my first best friend.

Over the ensuing months, I probably completely ruined Emily in the eyes of most of the Smallvillians of her own social echelon. She took a liking to warm and filling farm food, got more into sports, and started pulling pranks. She even learned a few swear words from my father as he was working out in the barn. She took to capris and fancy tees in place of her previous frilly pink dresses.

"To be honest," I said, as we burned the final dress ceremoniously out in a Kent farm field, "they were nauseating."

"Nova Kent, what are you doing?!" Mom was running out toward us. I grabbed the fire extinguisher next to me, blew out the fire, and dropped it with a thud.

"RUN!" I shouted, and we sprinted away from my Mom across the farm fields in the setting sun, laughing till our sides hurt.

Later, when he came to pick her up, Emily's father was surprisingly not angry. "I want to thank you guys for what you've done for my daughter," he told me and my parents, each parent with a hand on my shoulder. We were standing outside the fly-speckled front screen door. "Ever since her Mom died, I haven't known how to be around her. She seems much happier with you around."

"Oh, well. My daughter's a little troublemaker but she has a good heart," said my mother, thus cementing a reputation that would follow me around for the rest of my life. I ducked my head and scowled, kicking at the dirt. I saw my father trying not to smile.

"My Emily's the same," said Mr Dinsmore cheerfully. "Together they'll make a good team."

Suddenly, the horn honked behind him. Emily was already in the car. "Dad, come on!" she called impatiently out the window.

"Oh, look," said my Dad to me, "she already sounds like you."

-

"Come on, Nova! Usually you're the fearless one!" Emily was calling from her perch on the bridge above the dam. I could barely hear her, as I was down on the bank and water rushed by below her, foaming.

"I don't like heights!" I called, nervous. Usually playing in the woods was fun, but today Emily had gotten the wrong idea. She thought dangling over the edge of the bridge was her idea of a good time.

"Look, it's fine!" she called. "See!" She dangled herself half over the edge of the bridge, head pitched toward the water below, and I gasped. She grinned and stuck her tongue out at me, twiddling her legs. "Scaredy cat, scaredy cat!" she began chanting.

Then her legs slipped on the wet stone and she fell right over the side of the bridge. I screamed and so did she as her little ragdoll body fell limply toward the water below.

Time slowed down. Literally, not figuratively. In my childish panic I had gone into speed-running mode. I ran up the steps as she fell slowly, ran right up to the edge of the bridge and grabbed at her leg - but it was just beyond my reach.

Time moved back and she fell with a splash into the water.

"Emily!" I screamed, distraught, as her tiny form was pitched this way and that toward the dam by the moving current.

"Nova! HELP!" she called. She screamed as she was very nearly slammed against a rock on her way to her death at the dam.

I could help her. I could get her out, I knew. There was just one problem.

I was nine years old and afraid of heights.

I took deep breaths, the rushing of the water loud in my ears, feeling dizzy as I slowly stepped back from the edge of the bridge, looking out over it. "Come on," I whispered to myself, jiggling my feet. "Come on, you can do this. Move." I very nearly went to the edge of the bridge - and felt a churn of nauseousness. I couldn't move.

"NOVA!" Emily screamed as she was plunged right toward a rock.

"EMILY!" In the end, the trick was not to look at the drop below. As I leaped toward that water, all I could see was soaking wet Emily, tears on her face that was twisted in panic, hand reached out for me. Then I looked down, saw the water coming up quick in front of me - I hit it, and was unhurt as I found myself underwater with a deep lungful of oxygen. I plunged downward in the blue, murky, fast-moving river.

I was fine, I realized. And that was the last time I was ever afraid of heights - or of saving someone.

I swam fast toward Emily. That current was strong, but it had nothing on me. In seconds, I was at her, just reaching her before she hit the rock. I grabbed her by the waist and held her to me, calm against the currents. I came up for a breath of air, and found myself looking hard at her sobbing, confused face.

Somehow, in that moment, there was only the person who needed help and what I needed to do to get there. There was no fear.

"Emily," I said loudly over the rush of water, "hold onto me. We're going to make it to the shoreline." The iron voice sounded so unlike my own I barely recognized it.

Emily took a deep breath - and she didn't question me. Her tears dried; her face held firm. "Okay," she said.

She held on fast to me, her little face fierce and her eyes fiery. I swam as hard as I could against the currents, and slowly, little by little, we made it to the muddy bank. I pulled her up onto the bank with a great gasp and a rush of pouring water.

She lay there on her back and I was crouched on my hands and knees shaking. We gasped for air. There was silence for a long time as I became weak with relief. It finally started to hit me what had happened.

"How… how did you do that?" Emily's voice shook as she spoke.

I looked around. "What?"

"You were so fast - on the bank and then at the bridge. And that - that strength and speed - no kid could make it from there to here so fast with no help." She was looking at me, totally uncomprehending.

Horror choked me, stopping my heart. I only realized I was backing up when Emily sat up in concern but seemed like she was moving further away from me. "Please - please don't be scared," I gasped out, soaking wet. My baseball cap was gone, my black hair had come undone, and my pale translucent skin was muddy. In that moment, I felt utterly pathetic. "I - I promise I'm not going to hurt you!"

"What are you talking about? Of course you're not going to hurt me. You - saved me," Emily said, standing despite her trembling. She seemed genuinely so bewildered that I paused.

"I…" I swallowed. "I was cursed by God," I whispered hoarsely.

Emily frowned in concern. "Sit down," she said quietly, and slowly, slowly, I came over and sat down next to her on the riverbank.

I took a deep breath - and decided to test this idea of friendship. I told her everything.

"I… I don't think that's a curse," Emily finally said quietly, concerned. "I think that's really amazing. You could save… so many other people the way you saved me today."

"So - you're not afraid of me?" I asked tentatively.

"No!" She laughed and pulled me into a hug. "Nova, only someone who has no idea who you are would be afraid of you! You don't even like other kids getting picked on in school!" She began laughing - but stopped when I hugged her suddenly and she realized my eyes were burning, the world blurring.

"Thank you," I whispered.

She smiled. "Anytime."

I sat back and sniffled. "So… you won't tell anyone?"

She smiled mischievously. "That you have amazing world-saving superpowers or that you've been crying?"

"Both."

She giggled. "No, I won't tell anyone!" she promised. "Come on. Friends don't rat each other out." She nudged me.

I felt so weak with relief I began laughing in response. Soon we were both busting a gut there on the side of the river together.

-

"So… this is very important, Emily… you won't even tell your father?" My Dad was deadly serious in the kitchen that afternoon, kneeling down before Emily with me standing beside her. Mom stood worried in the background.

"No," she said sturdily. "Not if you don't want me to. In all the comics Nova has showed me, all the hero's best friends never rat out the hero. I'm not a snitch." She scowled fiercely, leaning forward as she said this. "I won't say anything unless Nova suddenly turns evil and starts attacking somebody. And only then after I've tried to stop her."

"That's not your responsibility," said my mother, but both of my parents had let out deep sighs of relief.

"That's sort of the tack they take as well," I confided to Emily, mock conspiratorially.

"Now, Emily, this comes with a lot of new responsibilities and risks. This is a big secret to keep, and I hate doing this to your Dad, but it's very important that you keep it," said my Dad, looking torn.

"I know," said Emily. She nodded matter of factly.

Dad relaxed in the same kind of weak relief I recognized from myself earlier, putting a hand over his eyes.

"Now I've gotta go call my Dad," said Emily brightly. "And tell him about everything except Nova's superpowers. By the way." She turned back at the kitchen doorway on her way to use the telephone. "Nova saved my life and she got over her fear of heights to do it. So you should tell her she did a really good job."

Emily left and walked down the hall to the phone.

My parents turned to me. "It was dangerous…" said my Mom. "But honey, I am so proud of you." She reached over to hug me, and I teared up a little. Mom was warm and she smelled familiar, like honey and cinnamon. Carefully as always, I hugged her back.

"Emily said what you guys said. That it's a gift, not a curse." I stood back and smiled tremblingly. "I feel like I can believe that… a little better now. My powers saved my best friend."

"See?" My Dad smiled proudly and put a hand on my shoulder. "Not all bad after all, right?"

Even on that day, I felt myself already becoming more secure about my secret. More able to give excuses easily about weirdness, but also more ready to accept the risk of letting the next person completely into my life.

Emily gave me a great gift that day, too - the gift of acceptance.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Alicia came when Emily and I were roughly ten and eleven years old. Emily was the one who suggested we go over and talk to her. 

“Poor Alicia’s always by herself,” she whispered to me, as we stood in the lunch room staring at the neatly put together, blonde Alicia sitting silently at the empty table by herself. Both of us were holding our lunch trays.

“It’s true. Alicia Baker is always alone,” I said skeptically. “But I get the feeling she wants to be. She never comes across to you as… kind of stuck up?”

“Maybe she has her reasons. After all, there was a reason you never invited people over to your house, right?” said Emily, looking at me meaningfully.

Feeling guilty, I nodded. “Okay… Let’s try it.”

We took deep, bracing breaths, walked over, and sat down next to Alicia in the lunchroom. One of us was on either side of her. “You mind if we sit here?” said Emily, faux bright.

Alicia stared at us silently. “... I don’t need your pity,” she said with contemptuous reserve at last.

I broke in. “Look, asshole, do I strike you as the kind of girl who does anything out of pity?” I snapped. Emily gasped and Alicia’s eyes widened. “I can choose to sit anywhere I damn well please and I chose to sit in this freaking lunch room next to you. So shut up and suck it up!”

“... Okay,” said Alicia, so surprised that she agreed. 

We asked her about herself that day, and we learned that Alicia took piano lessons and karate. We shared about ourselves as well and slowly she started to open up. When we asked if she wanted to hang out on the playground with us, she hesitated.

“Beats sitting on the swings alone,” Emily pointed out.

“... Okay,” Alicia finally said, smiling.

We ended up chasing each other around the playground, laughing together. After that, Alicia played with us every lunch and recess.

But one day she stopped coming to play.

We waited… and we waited… but Alicia never came back to school. “Dad, do the Bakers still live here?” I asked at last one day while I was doing farm chores beside my father.

“Of course. In town with their daughter Alicia. Why?” he asked, puzzled.

I frowned, nibbling on my tongue, considering. “I’m friends with Alicia. I think she’s sick. Can Emily and I bring her some food to help her feel better?”

-

Emily and I approached the house tentatively. It was cookie cutter perfect in a perfect neighborhood but the windows were all blacked out and it felt weirdly intimidating… like it was sucking us in.

Each of was carrying a container of soup.

We walked up hesitantly, and I knocked on the door. Nothing. I rang the doorbell. 

After a long pause, the door swung open.

Mr and Mrs Baker were standing there, pale with fixed smiles. “Hello… can we help you?” said Mrs Baker.

“We’re friends of Alicia’s,” I said uneasily, because Emily was hiding behind me, suddenly too afraid to speak. “We brought her some soup. We thought she might be sick.”

“Oh. Well, thank you.” Mrs Baker took the soup quickly and Mr Baker made to close the door.

“Wait! Is she sick?” I said desperately.

They paused. “Alicia… can’t afford to be distracted by outside things. She will be starting homeschooling,” said Mr Baker. 

Emily and I gave each other a look. We were pretty sure “distractions” meant “us.”

“Now, if that’s all -” Again, Mr Baker made to close the door.

“Wait! Can we see her? At least to say goodbye and tell her to feel better,” I said.

“Alicia's a bit too sick for visitors,” said Mrs Baker weakly, with that pale, fragile, timid smile.

“We’ll be quick,” I said.

“Well… we’ll let you inside while we check on her,” said Mrs Baker at last. “But the answer might be no, I’m afraid.”

The answer was going to be no. I could feel it. They were going to let us in to appease us and then make us leave. I’d had to be thinking fast this whole time, but now I really had to think fast. My mind raced as we were let into the weirdly perfect house, filled with wood panelling and big windows and vast white spaces.

Just as the Bakers went up to what must be Alicia’s room… I zoomed into super speed mode. Faster than the eye could catch, while their backs were turned, I sped across the room and knocked a heavy vase off an end table in the living room next room over. Then I sped back.

Time sped up again and the Bakers looked around. “What was that?!” Mrs Baker gasped fearfully. “Is it -?!” And they both hurried into the living room.

Emily and I gave each other a single glance and then ran up to the bedroom door. I pulled at the handle. It was locked. “... Alicia?” I whispered.

There was a sudden gasp on the other side of the door and the door handle rattled back. “Emily - Nova - please help - they’ve locked me in here - the room is lined with lead and I can’t get out -” Alicia sobbed.

“They’re trying to keep her from making friends!” Emily realized, furious.

Feeling a hot quickening of anger, I yanked the door knob off and threw the door wide open. Alicia rushed out into our arms, crying, obviously traumatized.

What if she’d been kept locked in there for years? What would the psychological effects have been?

“How - how did you -?” She at last stood back to stare at us, lost for words. She looked down at my weak smile, at my hands. 

“... You have powers,” she whispered, her eyes widening with some indefinable.

“Guilty as charged,” I said nervously.

“Alicia! What are you -?!” Mr and Mrs Baker had run back into the room, horrified. Cold fury crossed their daughter’s face.

“You can’t lock me in there anymore,” she said furiously, frigid, and she grabbed my hand and Emily’s, one in each of hers. There was a feeling like I was being sucked down a giant tube - and then we landed on soft grass in the empty recess play yard where we’d spent so much time together.

“... I have powers, too,” she told me with sullen shyness, looking away, trying to pretend our judgment didn’t bother her. With painful intimacy, I realized I knew what that felt like. “I can teleport. That’s what my parents locked me in there for. Lead is the only thing I can’t teleport out of. It started after I was found in a field I’d been swinging in, during the meteor shower in Smallville about eight years ago.”

I brightened slowly, amazement filling me. “Emily was the first to accept me,” I said with a big smile. “I have strength, speed, and intelligence. I’ve had it at least since I was adopted… since three years old. So, your age.”

Alicia looked up in surprise, realizing she wasn’t being judged.

“... Cool,” said Emily at last, casually, looking at the meaningful stare between us. “Two friends with superpowers.” We looked at her and she shrugged pragmatically.

I looked around. “Your parents will probably tell the authorities to look here,” I said, determined. “Can you teleport us somewhere else? Say… the woods behind my family’s farm? My parents are cool with powers, and really nice. They can help you. But can you get us there?”

Alicia gave a wicked smirk. “I thought you’d never ask.” And she grabbed our hands in hers.

-

My parents met Alicia with total surprise. I ran in and shouted, “Alicia has powers too and they started in the meteor shower and her parents are abusing her and we have to help!”

They stared at me in utter bewilderment.

Once they heard the story, however, my parents immediately ushered both Alicia and Emily inside. My Mom gave Alicia a blanket and a cup of hot tea at the warm round oak kitchen table, me and Emily sitting on either side of her, while my father called the local authorities. He was good friends with Sheriff Ethan.

“Those people had locked their daughter into a metal isolation room! My daughter discovered that they think she has some sort of weird teleportation powers! They’re highly mentally unstable and I don’t know what they’ll do if they find her before authorities find them!” Dad boomed over the phone.

“... Your parents are really nice,” Alicia whispered to me. I gave her a smile and a nod.

Alicia’s parents were arrested and sent to an asylum, child custody permanently taken away from them. Alicia would have had to go into foster care… if Mr Dinsmore, Emily’s father, hadn’t offered to take her in.

“The house has felt a little empty. Why don’t we have an extra person, and Emily’s friend, fill it? I know my Emily doesn’t want you to have to go.” He smiled at Alicia as she stood with me, my family, and Emily in front of the Kent house.

Alicia glanced over cautiously at Emily - who nodded, as did I. Mr Dinsmore was a nice man. “I’ll take it,” she said seriously, looking forward.

And so Alicia Baker became Emily’s adopted sister, Alicia Dinsmore. And I became best friends with the Dinsmore sisters, my chief confidantes.

Cold but fierce, when we were out sitting in a play circle in the woods one day, Alicia gave me and Emily a dignified promise. “You saved my life,” she said, lifting her chin. “So I’ll dedicate it to using my teleportation powers to help and protect you two. That is my purpose.”

Emily smiled.

“Just make sure to have some fun with us along the way,” I said warmly, slightly amused and gently teasing.

-

In my head, as I grow older and closer to middle school, I have more experiences, this time with my two new best friends.

I become fascinated by Halloween and by costumes. It becomes my favorite holiday, though I am never interested in any girly costumes. Me and the Dinsmore sisters go out trick or treating together on more than one holiday, and I’m always wearing some quirky or horrific costume. I form a particular fascination with witches.

In the same way, I become weirdly obsessed with the grim but cutesy, the adorable but psychopathic. This is particularly true when it comes to pajamas and stuffed animals. I become increasingly more eccentric.

At the same time, though, at heart I’m still a tomboy. One of my favorite hobbies becomes dirt biking. I get into wrecks so often that my mother says dryly it’s a good thing I never get cut up. Every year for my birthday - now freed from a fear of heights and sudden drops - I ask to go on all the roller coasters at the nearest Metropolis City theme park with Emily and Alicia.

Secretly, I start to become aware of romance. I am still young enough that I decide, like my mother, not to be materialistic. Like her, early on in life I choose the simple set of pearls over the fancy string of diamonds.

And where she is epitomized by red tulips, my flower of choice becomes white lilies. Neither of them are fancy flowers, neither of them roses or orchids. But they are no less beautiful for all that, and that, I decide with secret shyness, I like.

We see the typical video about where babies come from in the sixth grade, and whereas most children leave grossed out, I leave troubled. “What’s wrong?” Alicia asks as we leave class that day.

“I could lose control of my strength during sex,” I say softly, staring at the ground. “I’ll never be able to have sex, children… a family.”

“... Geez, Nova, you’re only ten,” says Emily frankly. “Lighten up and give it some time!”

“Yeah. I know you care about that stuff more than you let on, Nova,” says Alicia, frowning slightly, her biggest typical show of emotion that isn’t aggressive. “But you really don’t know what the future will hold.”

“... I guess.” I am still downcast.

“Someday you’ll get your pearls and white lilies,” says Emily, concerned. “But… you have to give it time.”

I look up - and smile reluctantly. “You sound like my Mom.” I wrinkle my nose mischievously.

“There are worse things!” says Emily, throwing up her hands in exasperation, and we walk away laughing.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

But the main part of the story really starts when middle school happened.

Emily, Alicia, and I all started filling out into our bodies in middle school. Alicia was slim and slinky with lovely blonde hair. Emily was curvy with curly brown hair. While Alicia became ever more cold and sophisticated and put together but fiery, Emily became even more of a mischievous prankster - and also a hippie. She began getting into herbal remedies and buying crystals for her room and meditating.

Then there was me.

I grew to become tall, thin, willowy, and rangy. I had a slim, heart-shaped face with a pointed chin. My bearing became regal, with aristocratic facial features. I had long, thick, wavy black hair - with bangs to hide my forehead - along with pale almost translucent skin and blue eyes. I had thin, arching, expressive eyebrows, long limbs, and elegant wrists.

I wasn’t entirely comfortable with my own appearance. I thought my chin was too pointed, my forehead was hideous, and I looked like a vampire. My overly long limbs and significant lack of big curves didn’t help anything either. I wasn’t ugly, of course, but what middle schooler sees the good in their appearance instead of the bad?

In middle school, I also finally began noticing fashion. Everyone had a look - a certain way they did their appearance - and I decided I should have one, too.

But, in typical Nova Kent style, I found the most beauty in the weird stuff.

I took to wearing black clothes - usually punk, but sometimes a bit more romantic and Gothic. I found I had a darkly romantic streak as well as a punk streak. My clothes were feminine enough, but all in black, sometimes self designed. I figured if I wore skirts, they should be on my terms. I got yelled at by the principal for my attire a couple of times and sometimes I had to lengthen skirts or add a jacket to fit in with the stupidass school dress code. Sometimes I wore my wavy black hair pinned up; other times it was loose all around my face and shoulders.

In makeup, I chose fantasy inspired styles, usually fairy or mermaid based and in dark or cool colors. I did still have my trademark love of Halloween, costumes, witches, and the cutesy but creepy.

The Dinsmore sisters accepted my sudden changes without question, though my parents were significantly less ready for my teenage years. “Honey, you look like a Halloween costume,” said my Mom in confusion, as my Dad stared at my new appearance on the first morning in utter, silent bewilderment.

“Good,” I said flatly and matter of factly, grabbing an apple from a bowl on the kitchen counter and walking out the back screen door to catch the bus for middle school. For I had changed in personality, too.

I lost some of my rambunctious energy and openness as I grew into my preteen and teenage years. I formed a tough face and quiet reserve, my former calm carrying over even as I became older. I was chilly and sarcastic when angered (which was more often), I had a dry sarcastic sense of humor, and I became even more opinionated and intense. I was still excellent at debate. I considered myself an introvert and a realist, and I took to light exercising regularly mostly to keep all normal human appearances.

I still couldn’t dance at all. I found myself to actually be kind of stoical and awkward. Scowling, I would flatly refuse to sing karaoke in front of others at Emily’s birthday party every year. “No one needs to hear my godawful singing voice,” I said. Still, I found I loved music - indie rock, acoustic, art and dream pop, experimental and electronica, pop punk, and punk rock being my favorites. I also formed a love for indie movies (particularly social issues film) and cult movies. I would go to the local one screen theater in Town, the Talon, on Saturday nights and sit in the quiet, usually dark and empty theater, snacking and watching the latest obscure piece.

So I formed my good points, too. I cultivated a casual, understated way of speaking, dotted with warm, good-natured sarcastic humor. I was unfailingly honest but in a quiet and compassionate way, I believed in fair and equal treatment of everyone, I was moralistic from my parents, and I did have frequent surprising moments of friendliness that broke through my usual reserve. I was trustworthy and usually kind despite my outward demeanor.

“You have a good and loyal heart,” my mother said, adding the increasingly annoying clause, “however you try to act.”

I was still a bookworm and a comic lover, but now I could add coffee addict and thrift shopper to that list. As I was finally allowed a phone, allowed to explore town on my own with my friends, I formed a rampant caffeine addiction from the Beanery in town and a genuine fondness for shopping. Thrift shopping was the most my family could regularly afford, and anyway, I found I loved thrift shops and little junk and antiques stores. In those crowded, dusty places full of junk, you never knew what treasures you might find.

I was also still a romantic. I had formed a secret love for the classy vintage girl look with the red-lipped smile, the cool and sensual girl, though I had a secret doubt in both my ability to afford such a look and my innate ability to be sexy - quite apart from having sex. I imagined an alternate self to Taylor Swift's "Blank Space."

And in secret, I consumed romance novels. No one close to me ever brought it up unless to tease me, because I could get very embarrassed and defensive about it. My tastes remained simple, but my love for emotional romance itself also never changed. I did form my favorite love songs: “The Louvre” by Lorde, “Million Reasons” by Lady Gaga, and “Boats & Birds” by Gregory and the Hawk. I kept a regular private journal full of whimsical or geometric doodles and soft, quiet, deeply emotional poetry, poetry being another thing I consumed a lot of in secret.

Outside of romance and poetry, my favorite kinds of books were socially based nonfiction and dystopian sci fi. I formed a love for horror and zombie movies, and every time it played at the Talon I began dragging the Dinsmore sisters to showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I became an angry female gamer who yelled and threw shit when she lost. I loved sports matches, watched a lot of football with my Dad, and had the same general practice there.

One thing I grew to love was roller derby. Maybe it should have been expected, with my love for dirtbiking. The first time my Dad took me to a match, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. I gasped and watched in awe, stars in my eyes, as people cheered for the skaters from the stands. These girls were tough, they played a rough and fast contact sport, and from the beginning I was in love.

There was just one problem. My Dad wouldn’t let me try out.

“I used to play contact sports. I was a footballer in high school,” he reminded me seriously. “I know how impulsive and dangerous they can be, and honey, think of your powers. What if you lost control? You could seriously hurt somebody.”

“Dad, I can be careful,” I said in frustration, trying to keep a hold on my temper.

“I know you can be careful. But I can’t risk it. Practice all you want in private, but I’m not signing a permission slip for you to join a team.” And Dad put his foot down; he wouldn’t budge.

“Well God knows that’s what every girl who’s into sports wants. She wants to practice in private and be overprotected by her father,” I said with bitter sarcasm.

“Honey -” He reached out for me, still looking confused, and I stormed away up the stairs. I wasn’t Daddy’s little tomboy anymore and he didn’t know what to do. I knew that, and I felt guilty about it, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him about it to his face.

I was tired of hiding because of my powers, and despite myself, I was angry.

So I did practice around the rink on skates, at least twice a week. I was fast, I was strong, and I learned both technique and control. I could be an amazing roller girl, I knew. I even chose a name, Zombie Stardust, a throwback to both my Dad’s old childhood classic rock music and my love for zombie and horror movies. But I was young enough to need a permission slip and my Mom wouldn’t side with me against my Dad.

I had my own problems with my Mom.

I slowly stopped idolizing my mother as I grew older. We formed a very complex, mixed relationship. My Mom was genuinely focused on love and compassion and not material things. I admired that. It was why I’d chosen a certain kind of flower like she had, pearls like she had. She also sat down with me as I got older and began teaching me things some evenings at the kitchen table after dinner. She was taking night classes in business management over at the local community college, and she began teaching me business and economics. From her, I learned not only compassionate immaterialism, but to be forgiving but canny of how the darker parts of the world really worked. My Mom was intuitive; from her, I learned intuition, one of the most useful skills anyone would ever teach me and something I would not have learned myself.

My mother also taught me good manners and the ethic of hard work. She began taking me on charity trips with her, like me she helped out on the farm, and she had her night classes on top of that. My Mom was the super woman and from her I learned anything was possible if you were willing to work for it enough. I also admired her warm, level headed maternal nature, though I was an awkward, angry teenager and I didn’t know how to tell her so. And like both my parents, I was still a dog and hiking outdoorsy horse person.

But at the same time, my Mom was a traditionalist, like my Dad. And I was not good at traditionalist, nor did I have any patience for it. Mom tried to teach me household chores, and I wasn’t sure if it was boredom or lack of ability, but from the beginning I was shit.

“That is the third meal you’ve burned this month!” I remember my mother once yelling angrily.

“Well I’m not good at cooking! And it’s not important!” I was frustrated.

“Not important?! What I do around here isn’t important?!”

“Don’t you ever get sick of it?” I snapped. “Of being a housewife in Smallville after the kind of Metropolis education you got?” I stormed away, like I had with my Dad.

“Nova Kent, you get back here! Don’t you dare tell me what I do around here isn’t significant work!” I wanted to turn back - and I didn’t. 

This was just one of our many frequent fights surrounding traditionalism. My Mom believed in gender roles and I didn’t. From the beginning, there was friction.

I made other breakthroughs when it came to food. I took to comfort eating when I was down. I loved chocolate mint desserts, and also Chinese delivery takeout. Mom hated it when I ordered takeout, but sometimes I indulged myself anyway. I had a big appetite and decided I was unafraid to show it.

And I became a vegetarian. This came about from my mother, ironically. She was all about organic food and moralistic eating. I started researching that, and I took it to the next level - not only did I eat organic, I refused to eat meat at all.

“You live on a farm and you’re not going to eat meat?” said my Dad disbelievingly when I announced this at the dinner table one night.

“No,” I said, crossing my arms firmly. “No more meat shall pass through this mouth.”

“Very dramatic,” said my mother dryly. “Nova, I admire you sticking to your ethics, but don’t you think you’re taking this a little too far?”

“No more meat,” I insisted once more. My parents just looked at each other and sighed. They had started doing that more and there was nothing quite as irritating as your parents sighing about you over your head.

On another note of food, I made more distant friends in middle school. Sometimes I would invite a bunch of people over - not for a big party, but just for a really laidback night with pizza, movies, and loud music. I was confident in myself and lots of teenage girls admired that, so me and my many girlfriends would also sometimes have sleepovers or hot guy movie nights - or both at the same time. Other times we took trips to the local drive-in theater, laughing in camp chairs and the tailgate beds of trucks out in the parking lot before the big screen, snacking. I didn’t drink very often, but when I did I usually preferred beer or liquor.

My closest friends, of course, were still Emily and Alicia. Some hangout times, or times getting coffee and thrift shopping in town, it would be just the three of us. Those moments were still my favorites. I took to reading in public a lot, and would pointedly ignore any guy who came up to talk to me in those moments, secretly enjoying it as he got more and more flustered and angry.

Opinionated till the end, I became a blogger. I disliked the biased, mudslinging, theory jumping system of modern day journalism, so all my writing was done privately. I was a grammar nazi, and decided to myself to be kink friendly and sexually aboveboard, mostly through my speech. I was good at stunning, humorous bluntness and quirk, boldly going in conversation where no woman had gone before. Though my beliefs in everything else were rock solid, my religious beliefs had become less certain - I wasn’t as sure of God and Christianity as I had been before, and I began wondering where exactly my powers had come from, and why I didn’t remember the meteor shower the way everyone else did. 

My typical blogging username became Algorithmic Witch, the first part reflecting a newfound love of math and science.

I supported the arts on a basic level, but my true school fascination was with math and science. I found myself to be unusually good at them, and in both middle school and high school I began helping to run the school “Women in Math and Science” initiative each year. People thus always seemed surprised when I said I wanted to grow up to be a social worker - though less so when I explained that I was an adopted orphan and I had a “saving people thing.” Science and math, I insisted, was a hobby - a very intensive one.

My favorite science was astronomy. I formed a love of stargazing with hot cocoa out in fields, of imagining other worlds and other lives on other planets. Even as a teenager, I still looked up at the stars and felt oddly like I had come home. My favorite color became deep blackish blue, not only because I liked dark and cool colors but because that particular color reminded me of the night sky.

So I was delighted when my Dad surprised me one day with a telescope. He brought me up to my loft above the barn floor (my “Fortress”), and there it was - standing by the open window looking out at fields and clear skies. It was old, but well cared for and gleaming dull bronze.

“It’s amazing!” I gasped, for once openly excited, as I speed ran over to it, hopping up and down.

My Dad smiled. “My father gave it to me before he died,” he said. “I figured it should be passed down to our little stargazer.”

I was so excited I didn’t even mind the “little” part. “Thank you, Daddy!” I zipped back over and hugged him. He chuckled and hugged me back as I closed my eyes and put my cheek against his chest, feeling his heartbeat.

I began putting maps and pictures of the stars everywhere in both of my spaces, right alongside my world maps and printed out road trip photos. I decorated my school locker with photos of both the same kinds. My bedroom and fortress-loft both formed a sort of “dark hipster” decorative interior, and despite my mother’s scolding, clothes always littered my bedroom floor.

And that was my life - school, my parents, Emily and Alicia, my more distant school friends, Women in Math and Science, blogging, and roller derby private practice sessions.

But then a series of incidents began happening in my late middle school years and my first months of high school - a number of important events occurred that changed everything, and that bear knowing. This is where the introduction and the telling ends, and the showing and the heart of the story begins.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

I was deluded enough to think my first period wouldn’t be traumatic.

I was totally ready for it, I thought! Cramps, blood - I had it covered. I was completely prepared, and when blood finally showed up on my underwear, I was actually kind of proud of myself. I was officially a teenage girl.

I was torn between bragging to everyone I knew and keeping it all inside myself because bragging was embarrassing.

And even the pain was totally bearable. So I thought I was fine. Then it happened.

Dad had this passive aggressive, mildly irritating thing he’d do where every time I said I needed a ride into town to go to the skate rink, he said he had some other need for the truck. Well one day he did that during my first period and of course, weird mood swings, I lost my shit.

“Just once could you please let me go to the stupid rink I can’t even join a team at!” I shouted, my face reddening. Then my vision went double. Disoriented, I stumbled and looked over at a picture frame on the wall beside his head - and the picture frame promptly exploded into flames.

“Shit!” I can’t remember who shouted it, but I doubled over, crouching, and shut my eyes, putting my hands over them. There was shouting and the smell of smoke and the fire alarms going off - it was terrible.

I sat crouched there with my eyes squeezed so tightly shut I saw stars, until everything was finally calm and silent again. I felt Mom kneel down next to me and put a hand on my back.

“Honey,” she said with sympathetic calmness, “open your eyes.”

“But what if I -?”

“You can’t just keep your eyes closed forever, Nova.” Her voice was still calm, soothing.

Slowly, I put my hands down and opened my eyes, blinking them. No more heat or disorientation, no more fire. I sighed and sat back. “What was that?” I said, bewildered.

“It seems you have one more power that manifests itself with hormones,” said Mom honestly. “Such as when you feel attraction, or when you lose your temper while menstruating.”

“So you’re telling me…” I said in dread, “that the first time I look at a guy and feel sexual attraction… I am going to set him on fire?!” I was horrified.

“Nova, you learned to control your strength. You can control this,” said my Dad, smiling weakly. It was not terribly convincing.

“How?!” I demanded incredulously, standing, waving my arms open wide.

“Your eyes have muscles, Nova, like your legs,” said Mom. “Some things must just trigger a muscle spasm. If you learn how to clench and unclench those muscles in your eyes…” She stood with me and shrugged. “The ability goes away.”

“Great. So how do I do that without burning the house down?” I asked desperately.

“... I think I have an idea,” said Dad, his eyes gleaming.

-

He took me out to a scarecrow in an empty field.

“I’m going to leave you alone,” he said nervously. “You practice on this scarecrow. When it’s… unusable… I’ll bring you another. Okay?”

“Okay… so… how do I turn it on?” I said, bewildered.

“Well.” He seemed desperately uncomfortable. “I would assume you either think of something that infuriates you…” He cleared his throat and finished fast. “Or you think of a very handsome young man. Take your pick.”

He practically fled.

I sighed, turned to the scarecrow… and began practice.

-

The other part that comes to mind is a blooming ability that I missed the opportunity of discovering.

“Guys, I literally just got my driver’s license in middle school so I could operate tractors!” I said, frustrated, in the kitchen with my parents one afternoon. “And you’re telling me I can’t get my ears pierced? I’m the only girl in the eighth grade who can’t even wear earrings!”

“We do not believe in piercings in this house,” said my Mom firmly, hand on her hip, and my Dad was equally firm right behind her.

“Wow, what perfect Christian parents you are! The minute I’m eighteen, I’m going to get a tramp stamp butterfly tattoo and I’m going to ink your names onto it,” I snapped sarcastically, storming out of the house and slamming the door on my way to the Dinsmore house, where I now went a lot these days.

I often wonder, later, what would have happened if I had tried to get a tattoo or a piercing. What I would have accidentally discovered.

This is the part where you wonder when I stop being a brat. Interestingly enough, it happens in the eighth grade.

That was the year I first came into contact with the Kawatche people. Joseph, a Kawatche Native American professor, ran upper division Women in Math and Science.


End file.
